In 1860 the British Association met in Oxford, and Bishop Wilberforce, the retiring president, in accordance with the custom of the society, gave a summary of the advance of science, especially during the preceding year. Everyone knew perfectly that the bishop would deal with the species question, and that he would handle it severely. Darwin was prevented by his usual ill health from being present at this meeting, but Huxley was there to see that their side of the question received proper attention. The bishop made a lengthy address, in the major portion of which he brought forward entirely worthy objections to Darwin's theories. Toward its close his feelings overmastered him and he departed from his manuscript and unburdened his mind. The lack of stenographers in those days and the tenseness of the moment, which made everyone forget to take down what was said, make it impossible to tell exactly what happened. It seems that Bishop Wilberforce, appealing to the prejudices of his audience, said, in language that now seems ludicrous but then was terribly bitter: "However, any of us might be willing to consider ourselves descended from an ape upon his father's side, no one would so demean his mother's memory as to imagine that she could possibly have shared in this descent." Huxley, who had waited patiently for the close of the bishop's address, saw immediately the fatal mistake. Turning to his companion beside him, he said, "The Lord has delivered the Philistine into my hands," and, rising, he hurled back at the bishop the indignant reply, "I should far rather owe my origin to an ape than I would owe it to a man who would use great gifts to obscure the truth." The bishop had made the mistake, and the struggle was on. Year by year it raged. One by one the scientists, first of England, and then of Germany, took their stand by Darwin. Huxley in England and Haeckel in Germany were the foremost advocates of the Darwinian idea. Long and fiercely the battle raged; slowly and gradually men began to see that, instead of undermining religion, the idea of evolution uplifted creation and made it not a strange happening in the distant past, but a divine activity through all time. But the battle had by no means subsided when one day came the sad news that Darwin's heart, so long feeble, so serious a hindrance to his work, had beaten its last on April 19, 1882.